Revenant was going to run with that theory. It was much easier to swallow than the alternative.
It was also less believable, but fuck it.
Reaver averted his gaze, suddenly becoming interested in his boots. “Neither one of us should have had to live like that.” He lifted his lids, and his eyes glowed with regret. Or maybe it was pity. Either way, it just made Revenant angrier. “But now you’re here, and it doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Like what? Like you being all perfect and angelic, and me being an evil bastard?” He laughed. “Sorry, Pollyanna, but it is that way.” The broken gargoyle wing seemed to stare accusingly at him from where it had landed on the rooftop, and with a thought, Revenant repaired the stone statue. Destroying historical treasures was not cool.
“You’re an angel. Let me talk to the archangels —”
“What, you really believe they’re going to welcome me with open arms? They haven’t done it so far. And what makes you think I’d want that? Maybe I like my life.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” he shot back. “You don’t know what I’ve done in the name of evil.”
“It doesn’t matter. Things are different now. You are different.”
Revenant snorted. “Tell me, brother, can you see anything at all through your rose-colored glasses?”
He looked up at the fluffy cumulus clouds meandering across a field of blue, remembering the first time he’d seen the sky when he’d emerged from the dark depths of Sheoul. He’d been endlessly fascinated, staring in wonder and trying to figure out what magic kept the clouds in the air. But that boyish wonder was gone now, and with a thought, he poofed them out of existence. He hadn’t been able to manipulate the weather before, but with the Shadow Angel upgrade he could whip up nuclear-grade hurricanes if he wanted to.
He wondered how long it would be before Satan had him doing exactly that, just to kill humans and piss off Heaven.
Dammit. He needed to stop fucking around. Satan had given him a week to prove his loyalty and willingness to play for Team Sheoul, and his evil side was cool with that – as long as he didn’t have to lick Lucifer’s boots. But his status as an angel confused him, made him want to honor his mother.
He wouldn’t be honoring her if he chose to serve the demon who had made both of their lives unbearably horrible.
Sure, she’d told him a million times that in order to survive, he’d have to do distasteful, wicked things. But he doubted that killing legions of angels and dropping natural disasters on top of humans was what she meant.
“Tell you what,” he said, hoping he wasn’t making a huge mistake. “I’ve been trying to contact Metatron. Hell, I’d settle for any archangel at this point. Take me to them, and I’ll see what they have to offer.”
Reaver closed his eyes, not even bothering to hide his relief that maybe his wayward brother was finally coming around. “I’ll talk to them. Arrange a meeting.”
“I don’t have time to wait around,” Revenant said. “Take me to them. Now.”
Reaver shook his head. “I have strict orders to keep you out of Heaven. They don’t want your taint to defile the realm. If you can —”
“My… taint?” Fury seared to ash every ounce of amity he’d been willing to extend. “Defile? They left me to rot in hell, erased my memories, and let me think I was something I wasn’t for more than five thousand fucking years, and now they have the nerve to say I’ll desecrate Heaven with my presence? Well, fuck you, Reaver. Fuck you and fuck them.”
“Dammit, Rev!” Reaver shouted. “What do you want?”
What did he want? That was easy. He wanted to belong somewhere. He wanted a life of his choosing, where he didn’t have to fear being drawn and quartered for some minor infraction. He wanted choices. Answers. He wanted to feel comfortable in his own skin again. Because as evil and vicious as he’d been before he regained his memories, at least he’d known who he was.
But he wasn’t going to tell his brother any of that. He’d only sound like a whiny imp, and besides, Reaver, with his rainbow-and-unicorn life, couldn’t possibly understand.
“I want for you to fuck off, just like I said.” He changed his hair back to black and flared his gold-and-silver-threaded ebony wings, reminding Reaver how very opposite they were. “Good chat, bro. We’ll have to do it again sometime. As the French say, Au revoir, mon frère.”
Eight
Harvester waited for a long time after Revenant dematerialized before she worked up the guts to step outside the quantamun and make herself visible to her ex-slave. This was something she should have done weeks ago, the moment she was reinstated as a Heavenly angel.